2017’s Best Places to Flip Houses

Following more than 126,000 house-flipping investors in 2016 and an average gross profit of nearly $63,000, the personal-finance website WalletHub took an in-depth look at 2017’s Best Places to Flip Houses.

If you’re among the millions of HGTV viewers who’ve seen an episode of “Flip or Flop,” you’ve probably thought about the thrill of gutting a house and turning a 5- or 6-figure profit. But before you demo that pink-tiled ’80s kitchen, you need a stern reality check from the Property Brothers. Any experienced home flipper would caution you that transforming a real-estate beast into a bankable beauty is never as easy as it looks on TV.

In other words, don’t get your hands dirty until you’ve learned a thing or two about real estate, construction and how much damage your project could do to your wallet — and to the beam that’s keeping the roof from collapsing. Breathing new life into a low-cost property won’t necessarily return your full investment and allow you to pocket another $62,624, the average gross flipping profit in 2016. While home flipping enjoys its highest rate since 2007, according to RealtyTrac, the current homeownership rate is near the previous half-century low of 62.9 percent, which may translate to fewer potential buyers off the bat, depending on the location of your revamped property.

To help you choose the right market to list your masterpiece, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 150 largest U.S. cities across 22 key indicators of market potential, cost and quality of life. Its data set ranges from median purchase price to average full home remodeling costs to housing-market health index.

El Paso, Texas was rated the number one city to flip homes in 2017.

For a complete list of the winners, expert home-flipping advice and a full description of its methodology, visit wallethub.com.